In many developed countries, up to 30% of the population is significantly overweight and obese. Obesity is highly correlated to a number of health problems including hypertension, diabetes, mellitus, hyperlipidemia, cardiovascular disease, and various psychological problems.
Causes of obesity are numerous. For many, obesity starts in childhood with overfeeding and the use of food as reward for good behavior. Lack of nutritional education leads to a lifelong choice of high calorie foods of low nutritional value. A sedentary existence may follow a childhood of little activity or participation in nonaerobic sports.
As dining has become a solitary rather than a family or social event, it has become more rapid. Rapid eating is also a major cause of obesity. Although the intestinal tract secretes several hormones to indicate to the brain that sufficient food has been ingested, these and other psychological mechanisms require approximately 10-15 minutes to indicate such to the brain. As a result, a rapid eater can consume may excess calories before these mechanisms signal a "full feeling" to the brain.
Classic dieting techniques have typically failed to permanently reduce the weight of many overweight people. One such approach is to consume less calories than expended. This typically includes a "crash" diet with relatively unpallible, low-calorie foods and an exercise program to increase aerobic metabolism, consume body fat stores and change metabolic patterns.
Another approach is to teach the patient to measure the weight or volume of each food to be eaten and then multiplying the measured quantity by a published value of calories per unit weight or volume. When the total calorie intake reaches a predetermined amount, the person should stop eating.
These dieting techniques typically fail, even after weight loss, due to the person returning to old eating habits and regaining lost weight.
As a result, other dieting techniques have been developed to permanently change eating habits. These include choosing nutritionally proper foods, engaging in strenuous activity to increase calorie use and decrease appetite, and substituting other emotionally satisfying rewards besides food. However, simply learning to eat slowly allows the body's feedback mechanisms to naturally limit food intake.
A number of prior art devices have been suggested for indicating a minimum desired time between bites of food. These devices include for example a simple, stand-alone timer that is reset by the diner after each bite of food to signal when the next bite may be eaten. Another device includes an electronic timer enclosed within the handle of an eating utensil. The diner resets the electronic device after each bite and weights for a light to appear after a time period determined by the components of the timer. The motivated dieter waits for the appropriate light signal before using the utensil to ingest the next bite of food. However, this utensil has a number of problems. First, the distal end of the utensil must be removed from the handle for cleaning. A battery included in the handle makes the utensil relatively large, unattractive, and clumsy to handle. Furthermore, replacement of the battery or electrical components is inconvenient and costly.